Folio Text Research Articles

Some Textual Implications of Tyrone Guthrie's 1953 Production of All's Well That Ends Well

jB HE Folio text of All's Well That Ends Well, if not quite so dvile as Quiller-Couch asserts, is certainly unsatisfactory in a number of ways. There are gaps in the text, missing stage directions, incorrectly assigned speech-headings, and an unusual degree of variation in the nomenclature of the characters. Since the Folio is also, unfortunately, the only source for the text of the play, a modern editor is presented with a number of particularly vexing problems. It is not surprising, therefore, that there should be considerable disagreement about the way in which the Folio text should be improved for the twentieth-century reader. For example, one short passage of dialogue between Lafew and Parolles (II. iii. 10-38) is divided between the speakers five ways in as many modern editions. Similarly, a stage direction necessary to describe the movements of the King in Act II, scene one (but missing from the Folio) is rendered differently in every one of the six paperback editions of the play now available.2 Such diversity is perhaps inevitable given the nature of the problem. Nor is it altogether unhealthy, providing the deviations from the Folio text are clearly marked and the reasons for them defended. Unfortunately, however, this is not always the case. Changes are sometimes introduced without comment and stage directions inserted with unwarranted authority. Furthermore, when justification is attempted, it is frequently based on purely theoretical arguments. Encouraged perhaps by E. M. W. Tillyard's cheerful admission in Shakespeare's Problem Plays that he had never seen All's Well,3 the editors whom I have consulted have apparently considered it unnecessary to refer in any detail to an actual theatrical production of the play. The result is that many of the assumptions upon which their editorial decisions are based remain untested in practice. just such a test is provided in the prompt-book of All's Well used in the

“Morning Glew” and Other Sweat Leaves in the Folio Text of Andrew Marvell's Major Pre‐Restoration Poems

“Morning Glew” and Other Sweat Leaves in the Folio Text of Andrew Marvell's Major Pre‐Restoration Poems

Casting for Pembroke’s Men: The Henry VI Quartos and The Taming of A Shrew

ET us glance at the current understanding of two of the earliest Shakespearian quartos and then try to make further headway. In the late 1920'S Peter Alexander and Madeleine . Doran, working independently, demonstrated that the quarto versions of 2 and 3 Henry VI are memorial reconstructions of the corresponding folio texts.' Since the quartos (Q) had usually been taken as source plays which Shakespeare later reworked into the folio versions (F), the Alexander-Doran hypothesis changed the direction of criticism on the Henry VI plays. As the hypothesis gained acceptance, it became clear that the peculiarities of Q, for which scholars had spent long arguments trying to make one dramatist or another responsible, were really attributable to whatever group of actors undertook the memorial reconstructions. And Shakespeare-assuming that he was not one of those actors-was left free of such entanglements to be studied as the venturesome young author who as early as I590-9i designed a serious and realistic group of plays on the Wars of the Roses, in a form close to F, and thereby influenced the maturing of Elizabethan drama as decisively as did Marlowe with Tamburlaine or Kyd with The Spanish Tragedy.2 One result of the Alexander-Doran hypothesis has been a growing conviction that Shakespeare found an early theatrical association with a company which in the I590's passed briefly under the patronage of the second Earl of Pembroke. It is virtually certain that Pembroke's men performed the quarto versions of the history plays, The First Part of the Contention Betwixt the . . . Houses of York and Lancaster (hereafter i Contention) and The True

The Original Ending of The Taming of the Shrew

ODAY I should like to discuss with you a somewhat minor problem in the textual and in the literary criticism of Shakespeare.* The Taming of the Shrew was printed in the Folio of i623 without any corresponding entry in the Stationers' Register. The authorities must have regarded the entry dated 2 May 1594 of thirty years earlier for the quarto known as The Taming of A Shrew as relevant. The relation, however, between the Quarto text of 1594 and that of the Folio text of i623 is still a scholarly issue. Today I propose to consider the question raised by the final scene in A Shrew. The Folio version of i623 ends with the scene in which the Shrew vindicates her husband's faith in her obedience by answering, in spite of the refusal of Bianca, and the newly-wedded widow, in similar circumstances, his request that she join him as he sits with her father and the other newly-married men. This is the scene that used to worry some of my older lady friends in an age when husbands were still taken seriously. Today I should no longer try to reassure them by pointing out that married women in Elizabeth's day, if we are to believe the comments of continental visitors, were very much like those of today and astonished strangers by the freedom and social equality they took for granted. Today, instead, I shall try to persuade you that Shakespeare in his earlier years was too wise a man and too interested in the contribution the ladies of London made to the box-office takings to complete his play on the note on which the Folio text now ends. The original ending of Shakespeare's play is to be found, very imperfectly reported, so I shall argue, in the final scene of the Quarto of

How Many Children had Lady Capulet?

ISCUSSION of of Lady Capulet may appropriately be prefaced with observation that character never is so called in original editions. There is no list of dramatis Yta9 fii~l # personae in chief edition of Romeo and Juliet, second quarto of I599.1 In stage-directions of Q2 character is referred to four times as Wife, thrice as Mother, once as Capulet's Wife, once as Lady, and once as Lady of house. In speech-headings she is referred to sixteen times as Mother, thirteen times as Lady, seven times as Wife, six times as Old Lady, and twice as Capulet's Wife. The variation in designation2 is part of evidence for generally held theory that Q2 was printed mainly from Shakespeare's foul papers.3 In dialogue Wife is once referred to by Nurse as the Lady of house (I. V. II5) and once addressed by Juliet as your Ladyship (III. V. I07). She is also addressed several times by Capulet as wife and by Juliet, Paris, and Nurse as madam. The designation Lady Capulet is not, of course, inappropriate, for Paris twice addresses Capulet as my lord (I. ii. 6, III. iV. 29). But familiar modern designation is not Elizabethan. It originates in stage-directions and speech-headings of Rowe's edition of I709, first to provide a dramatis personae. problem is posed by of Capulet's Wife: is she or young? On one hand there are two pieces of evidence explicitly stating that she is old. At V. iii 206-207 she exclaims that this sight of death is as a bell that warns her old age to a sepulcher. And she is referred to by designation Old Lady in Q2 speech-headings of I. iii. 49, 63, 69, 77, 79, and 96. It seems desirable to emphasize latter evidence since it is not generally known to readers who approach Romeo and Juliet through medium of edited texts, in most or perhaps all of which these particular speech-headings are normalized to Wife or Lady Capulet. The usage occurs in several Shakespearian dramatic texts. In stage-directions of Q2 Romeo and Juliet Montague is twice designated as Old Montague (I. i, III. i), Capulet twice as Old Capulet (III. iv, IV. iv). In Folio text of All's Well That Ends Well Countess of Rousillon is designated as Old Lady twice in stage-directions (IV. v, V. iii) and four times in speech-headings (III. ii, V. iii).4 In speech-headings of same text Lafeu is designated eighteen times as Old Lafeu, once as Old Lord (II. iii). In F Henry VIII Anne Bullen's confidante is referred to as Old Lady 1I have used Shakespeare Association facsimile edition of Q2 (I949), from which quotations in present article are taken. Variants in secondary substantive edition, first quarto of I597, are without significance in present context. 2 See R. B. McKerrow, A Suggestion Regarding Shakespeare's Manuscripts, RES, XI (I935), 459-465. 8 See The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedie of Romeo and Juliet, ed. George Walton Williams (i964), pp. xii-xiii. 4 For First Folio I have used Yale facsimile edition (I954) .

The Folio Text of Fielding's "The Miser"

The Folio Text of Fielding's "The Miser"

Troilus and Cressida Reconsidered

There are almost as many opinions about the nature of Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida as there are critics; and each critic can fortify his argument by referring to the inability of the play's first editors to see eye to eye about it. In particular, if he wants to claim it as comedy, he can cite the preface of the Quarto of 1609, for whoever wrote that praised the play as "passing full of the palme comicall"; and if he prefers to deal with it as tragedy, he can point to the first plan of the editors of the Folio of 1623, who meant to place it after Romeo and Juliet. To add to the confusion, the Folio text seems to contain two endings to the play, for Troilus's last dismissal of Pandarus is there printed twice, in V.iii, and in V.x. Shakespeare clearly conceived at some time a bitter or "tragic" ending, culminating in Troilus's fine speech in V.x; after one false ending, omitted in the Quarto,

Julius Caesar in Revision

N the First Folio text of Julius Caesar, two episodes have speech-tags materially different from those elsewhere in the * ; I q 4 play. Bibliographical evidence indicates that these variants were derived from printers' copy and that their presence in * f t the copy may have stemmed from revision. Other evidence not only makes revision likely but suggests rewriting of a significant kind. Hence, if the result is tenable, a study of accidentals in the text opens the way to value judgments upon Shakespeare's art and its development. Although inquiry will extend slightly beyond them, the two points of speechtag variance are II. i. 86-228 and IV. iii. I29-i66. Since the passage in Act IV contains a long-suspected revision I shall deal with it first, and in doing so shall try to clarify the relationship of speech-headings to the history of a text. Thus, a covering of familiar ground in Act IV will prepare for the unfamiliar and more difficult question of revision in Act II.

The Copy for the Folio Richard III

N SQ, X (ig5g), 91-96, I had occasion to review in some detail J. K. Walton's monograph, The Copy for the Folio Text of Richard III 0955), which argued that Q3 (i602), and not Q6 (i622) as usually believed, was the exclusive copy for the Folio throughout. This review was not undertaken lightly; and I did not feel competent to write it until I had made what I thought was considerable progress in approaching the problem by a different method, which appeared to provide evidence to confirm Mr. Walton's views. Further experience, however, has tempered the positiveness with which, in this review, I approved Mr. Walton's upsetting of the traditional textual position of Q6. It is very probable that the new research necessary to approach this problem with any real authority will take a long time, since compositorial evidence must be sought far afield from Richard III alone. In these circumstances I am concerned that in what now seems to be a premature manner I presumed to write on the subject, and that, having done so, I may mislead other critics if I do not indicate that I can no longer feel the certainty, as stated in the review, that the problem has been solved. Indeed, further consideration leads me to believe that the case for Q6 cannot be dismissed so readily as I thought at first. The matter is too complex for me to attempt just now to give more than one or two reasons, but some account, I feel, is due. In determining the genetic relationship of texts, criticism has relied exclusively on the study of variant readings according to the principle that identity of reading implies identity of origin. Under most conditions found in a series of reprints, the normal progress of corruption in successive typesettings offers quite enough evidence from which to determine the derivation and order of editions, even in moderately complex cases of mixed copy. On the contrary, when some correcting agent interferes with the text-like a collator charged with bringing a print into conformity with a manuscript of different textual tradition-substantive readings may prove to be either almost non-existent or else untrustworthy evidence. The normal reprint transmission of variants is disrupted at its source by the correction of error and by the alteration or revision of satisfactory readings. This smoothing-out of the evidence on which textual criticism normally operates is particularly acute in a case like Richard III when the choice of copy for the Folio can be narrowed to only two editions: one the last in the series of quarto reprints before F, but the other a non-touching earlier edition. It is in. evitable that any terminal edition is likely to agree uniquely with its chronological predecessor more often than with an earlier edition, even though the earlier

The Copy for the Folio Text of Richard III; with a Note on the Copy for the Folio Text of King Lear.

Journal Article J . K. Walton: The Copy for the Folio Text of Richard III; with a Note on the Copy for the Folio Text of King Lear Get access The Copy for the Folio Text of Richard III; with a Note on the Copy for the Folio Text of King Lear (Monograph Series, No. 1). By J . K. Walton. Auckland University College, 1955. Pp. 164. £1/-/-. Fredson Bowers Fredson Bowers University of Virginia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 10, Issue 1, Winter 1959, Pages 91–96, https://doi.org/10.2307/2867028 Published: 01 January 1959

THE QUARTOS AND THE FOLIO TEXT OF RICHARD III

N a recent article on the 'doubtful' quarto of King Lear, I suggested that the Folio text of that play was set up by its one compositor, B, from the two quartos (Qi and Q2), corrected from an authentic manuscript, and used alternately as copy.' I now propose to examine the other 'doubtful' quarto-Richard III-and to argue that the F text, set up by the two compositors, A and B, was printed from three of the six quartos then available-Qi, Q3, and Q6-used in some sort of rotation, and corrected with varying degrees of accuracy from an authentic manuscript. The implication, as in the case of Lear, is that the procedure arose, not from Heminge and Condell in the theatre (as usually supposed), but in the printing-house for the convenience of the compositors and the editorcorrector there.

Reviews

Journal Article Reviews Get access J. K. WALTON, The Copy for the Folio Text of ‘Richard III’, with a Note on the Copy for the Folio Text of ‘King Lear’.( Auckland University College Monograph Series, No. 1.) Auckland, New Zealand. 1955. Pp. 164. £1(cloth); 15s. (paper). W. W. GREG W. W. GREG Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Library, Volume s5-XI, Issue 2, June 1956, Pages 125–129, https://doi.org/10.1093/library/s5-XI.2.125 Published: 01 June 1956

The Folio Text of 2 Henry IV

ECENTLY, in an article in R.E.S., N. Ser., II (i95i), and in her book on Textual Problems in First Folio (I953), Miss Alice Walker has revived idea that folio text of 2 Henry IV was printed from a copy of quarto of i6oo which had been collated with a complete authoritative manuscript. The determination of copy used in printing folio is hardly a matter of first importance since everybody agrees that quarto, as far as it goes, is authoritative text, but Miss Walker's point that, if basis of F is Q, former is not an altogether independent witness, is well taken. Since I am, in a manner of speaking, sponsor of a rival theory that F was printed from a manuscript (Variorum 2 Henry IV, I940, pp. 5o8Aff.), I have examined Miss Walker's argument with lively interest. But, although Miss Walker has unquestionably made out a case for her theory, I cannot convince myself that it is really acceptable, and I think it may be well to state reasons why it does not carry conviction. In first place, there is some improbability or at least inconvenience in anybody's comparing a printed book with a manuscript containing a considerable number of variants and painstakingly transferring all variants to pages of printed book. The process would be toilsome and fatiguing in extreme, especially if Miss Walker is right in thinking that the collation of manuscripts with quartos to serve as Folio copy was normally diplomatic in intention (p. I56). She herself estimates that, in Richard 111, her collator made 1500 alterations, not including changes in stage-directions and speech-prefixes and those he made in 500 lines based on Q3. Sig. C2V in quarto of 2 Henry IV contains 393 words. The corresponding portion of F contains 374. To bring Q text into conformity with F it would be necessary to strike out I2 words and to alter I5 more, substituting 8 different words for them (one or two of these alterations may have been accidental). The Q page contains 47 marks of punctuation, F 57. Of 47, i6 are reproduced exactly in F. Of remainder, 27 are changed and 4 omitted. F adds I4 new marks of punctuation.' Miss Walker's collator would therefore have had to put his pen through 27 words and 3I marks of punctuation on this page and write I4 carets in places where punctuation was to be added; then he would have written 8 words and 4I marks of punctuation in margins besides sundry signs of dele-

THE QUARTOS AND THE FOLIO TEXT OF KING LEAR

Journal Article THE QUARTOS AND THE FOLIO TEXT OF KING LEAR Get access ANDREW S. CAIRNCROSS ANDREW S. CAIRNCROSS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume VI, Issue 21, 1955, Pages 252–258, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/VI.21.252 Published: 01 January 1955

The Authenticity of The Taming of the Shrew

HE relation of Taming of the Shrew, first published in the Folio of i623, to Taming of a Shrew, printed in quarto in I594, is still a matter for dispute. According to the old school of thought, Shrew was a refurbishing of A Shrew, carried out by Shakespeare with the aid of a collaborator.' More modern critics have argued that Shrew is an original play and that A Shrew is a pirated version of it.2 Recently, attempts have been made to expound a theory that A Shrew and Shrew are both derivatives of an early play, no longer extant.3 Whichever explanation of the relation between the quarto and folio texts ultimately succeeds in establishing itself, a fundamental problem will still remain: is the play preserved in the First Folio by Shakespeare in its entirety, or are there two distinct hands in the piece, those of Shakespeare and an unknown (though not unguessed-at) collaborator? received text might on any of the three theories have been the work of more than one man. Even though critics of such acumen as F. S. Boas,4 E. P. Kuhl,5 A. Quiller-Couch6 and P. Alexander7 have defended its claim to be a completely authentic juvenile work of the poet, a not inconsiderable body of opinion still seems to favor the belief that the play is only partly Shakespearian. This belief is well exemplified by T. M. Parrott: The induction and the scenes dealing with Petruchio and Katherine are Shakespeare's in his best vein of lively comedy.... underplot, dealing with the wooing of the shrew's gentle sister, is the work of the collaborator, who, perhaps on Shakespeare's suggestion, lifted the plot from

Two Problems in the Folio Text of King Lear

Two Problems in the Folio Text of King Lear Philip Williams Philip Williams Duke University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shakespeare Quarterly, Volume 4, Issue 4, Autumn 1953, Pages 451–460, https://doi.org/10.2307/2866480 Published: 01 October 1953

L. 2 and 3 Henry VI— Which Holinshed?

In a recent article in the Review of English Studies Mr. R. B. McKerrow opens the question of the use of the 1577 or the 1587 edition of Holinshed's Chronicles as a source for 2 Henry VI and gives it as his judgment that the Contention is based on the first edition. In making a study of this question, I have compared in detail the original editions of both the 1577 and the 1587 versions of the history with the Folio texts of 1, 2, and 3 Henry VI instead of with the Quartos, since in my opinion the Folios are the earlier. Such an investigation furnishes distinct evidence that the dramatist used the 1587 Holinshed and not the first edition.

The Quarto Version of Henry V as a Stage Adaptation

Some time ago, Dr. W. J. Lawrence, writing in the Criterion, stated his belief that the Shakespearean “Bad Quartos” which have in the past provoked so many conflicting explanations are in reality nothing more than unauthorized stage adaptations made directly from the full theatre manuscript by pirates who then performed the plays in the provinces. Dr. Lawrence reached this conclusion after finding certain similarities running through all the bad quartos, notably the absence of reflective passages, which would indicate abridgment for provincial performance, and the transposition of scenes, which might have resulted from the necessities of doubling. As to the bad quarto of Henry V, at least, I am convinced that Dr. Lawrence's theory is the right one. From a careful word-for-word comparison of that text with the folio text of 1623, I had myself reached the same conclusion before his article came to my attention. Since Dr. Lawrence did not attempt to show the manner in which the supposed adaptation was made, I shall here set forth the results of my own more detailed study in support of his general hypothesis.

Shakespere's Purpose in Timon of Athens

Two conflicting theories regarding the composition of Timon of Athens have been expounded for many years. The first, argued notably by Professor Delius, asserts that the Folio text represents Shakespere's partial revision of an uninspired old play; the second, espoused by Mr. Fleay and elaborated in recent years by Dr. E. H. Wright, assumes that the play is an unfinished draft by Shakespere filled out by later literary hack-work. The latter theory at present receives more general favour; nevertheless in 1923 Mr. Dugdale Sykes in Notes and Queries, after calling attention to certain internal relationships in the play, has attempted to revive the earlier explanation.